I wasn’t very good at painting and not that committed to improving. I would have…
The Wood Of The Dead
It feels a while since my last painting but it’s only been a week. My excuse is that I’ve been playing in a correspondence chess tournament. I also have other things coming up this week (new glasses, a couple of jabs, a new computer to set up) so thought I’d better do some painting today. It’s a bit chilly outside and the day will soon come when I put away my paints for the winter and only use indoor media. I didn’t fancy long spells outside, so went for an abstract landscape, where I wouldn’t need to be especially careful with the details. I was inspired by a YouTube video by Steve Mitchell, but my techniques ended up diverging well away from his.
For colours, I went for some underused gems. Cobalt blue (not in my regular palette), green apatite genuine (not yet shown its class), hematite violet genuine (ditto), cadmium red (because it granulates) and raw sienna (my least used yellow and a granulator). All five colours were granulators and I wanted to start with a watery underpainting that let them all show off their granulating talents. Cadmium yellow and titanium white made appearances at the end, and not just in the spatters.
I started with some random spattering with masking fluid. I included some horizontal lines around the horizon after seeing Steve do something similar. And then I sprayed water over the paper and put on some colours. I was hoping to see some “roots” appearing at the bottom but instead I got dribbles. I tinkered around too much at this stage and things got muddy. I did get a good sky colour and some green tree shapes with blue tree shapes behind them but I could see very little of the individual colours. Raw sienna, in particular, was shouted out of the conversation. And I didn’t get any good granulation patterns.
After that, I put on two or three layers of paint on an attempt to turn this one into something recognisable. This was easier for the top half. It only took a couple more layers to bring out the trees. Some dabbing with dry paint (cadmium yellow, hematite violet genuine, green apatite genuine and cobalt blue) resulted in some pretty good looking trees.
The hillside, though, that was another matter. It started muddy and it stayed muddy. I tried to use the cadmium red and cobalt blue to add some colour, thinking their opacity might help. Didn’t really work. I blotted put a diagonal path up to the trees and made several attempts at painting in steps. That didn’t really work either. I tried using salt in several of the layers. Nope. I added some white grass with the Merlin brush and a hill for it to sit on in cadmium red. Looked wrong. So in the end I gave up and spattered on some titanium white, cadmium yellow and cadmium red.
So this ended up as a big flop, although the trees look good and a cropped painting might work. It’s not going in the shop window. The title of the painting is from an Algernon Blackwood short story. Pines was an alternative Blackwood-inspired name but I think I’ll save that name for a better painting.
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